At present, lamps are placed in motor vehicle headlights by means of a lamp base which is engaged in a support ring, and they are then locked in place by means of at least one spring clip which is pivotally mounted on the support ring and which is clamps the base to the ring. However, current spring clips present several drawbacks due to their structure. Firstly, prior art spring clips are not sufficiently rigid in the clamping position to ensure entirely reliable retention of the lamp. Secondly, an extra assembly operation is required when fitting prior art spring clips to their associated support rings in order to ensure that the spring clips are not lost, e.g. when changing lamps. Finally, spring clips are delivered in bulk in the form of open wire loops in a box thereby entailing considerable loss of time on an assembly line since the clips have a marked tendency to tangle with one other and the assembley worker thus has to waste time untangling them before mounting them on support rings.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention mitigate these drawbacks by providing clips which are easy to mount without requiring any extra assembly operation to prevent them from getting lost, which remain tightly clamped when closed against the associated support ring without risk of accidentally opening, and which show no tendency to tangle when stored in bulk in a box.